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Very good indeed. Just finished chapter five, five left to go.
The set-up of "The Glass Books... " owes a bit to Philip Pullman's world-building in "Northern Lights" (a mysterious new scientific Process exploited by a powerful cabal for their own ends). The setting is a wonderfully imagined alternate Victorian realm, replete with Dragoons, brothels, steam trains, labyrinthine libraries and ministries, first class hotels and opium dens.
There are three principals :
Miss Celeste Temple, a young, single lady of means whose pique at her engagement being terminated by a young diplomat leads her to make life-threatening discoveries at a masked ball in a country house.
"Cardinal" Chang, a poetry-loving assassin/debt-collector, an underclass samurai-type.
Doctor Svenson, a medical attache from Macklenberg, who discovers that the Prince he has pledged to protect has been caught up in the schemes of others.
Each chapter takes up the story from the point of view of one of the three leads, and usually ends on an unbearable cliffhanger (has Miss Temple been captured by the enemy? Will Chang survive a fall into oblivion?)
G W Dahlquist's narration is a touch prolix, but his narrative pacing is expert, and he is aces at set-piece action sequences. (Chang's virtuosity with his sword-stick always convinces.)
I'm reading the ten-part chapbook version (details here) and, once I've shared them with Naomi at work, I'll be happy to pass them on to interested parties.
The set-up of "The Glass Books... " owes a bit to Philip Pullman's world-building in "Northern Lights" (a mysterious new scientific Process exploited by a powerful cabal for their own ends). The setting is a wonderfully imagined alternate Victorian realm, replete with Dragoons, brothels, steam trains, labyrinthine libraries and ministries, first class hotels and opium dens.
There are three principals :
Miss Celeste Temple, a young, single lady of means whose pique at her engagement being terminated by a young diplomat leads her to make life-threatening discoveries at a masked ball in a country house.
"Cardinal" Chang, a poetry-loving assassin/debt-collector, an underclass samurai-type.
Doctor Svenson, a medical attache from Macklenberg, who discovers that the Prince he has pledged to protect has been caught up in the schemes of others.
Each chapter takes up the story from the point of view of one of the three leads, and usually ends on an unbearable cliffhanger (has Miss Temple been captured by the enemy? Will Chang survive a fall into oblivion?)
G W Dahlquist's narration is a touch prolix, but his narrative pacing is expert, and he is aces at set-piece action sequences. (Chang's virtuosity with his sword-stick always convinces.)
I'm reading the ten-part chapbook version (details here) and, once I've shared them with Naomi at work, I'll be happy to pass them on to interested parties.
